If you're hoping to travel around Europe on a budget this summer, there's good news from France. Thousands of train tickets are now sold at a fixed and reduced price.
They are already on sale and will be available until July 15. A total of 200,000 tickets are available, with a fixed price of €19. The tickets are valid on all Intercités lines for travel between July 7 and August 31.
In summer, these fares typically cost travelers around €35. The Intercités network is mainly concentrated around Paris, but has routes between Nantes and Lyon, Nantes and Bordeaux, Toulouse and Marseille, and Bordeaux and Marseille.
The government invested in this campaign to help vacationers save money. According to the Ministry of Transport, Intercités trains carry about 12 million people a year. This is much less than French TGV trains, which carried 23 million people last summer, but the government cannot change the prices of high-speed trains.
Incidentally, by next summer, the French Ministry of Transport hopes to introduce a single travel pass for young people. The pass will be valid on all forms of public transport, including Intercités trains, TER trains, and buses.
